TORONTO - Canada's economy gained a net 15,300 jobs in April, entirely in part-time work, Statistics Canada said on Friday. The jobless rate edged down to 5.2%, a new record low.

Employment in the goods producing sector fell by a net 16,000 jobs, mostly in construction. The services sector grew by a net 31,4600 positions, mostly in public administration, as well as professional, scientific and technical services.

JAY ZHAO-MURRAY, MARKET ANALYST AT MONEX CANADA

"The results of April's labour force survey were mixed. While on the one hand, the net employment increase slowed substantially, following two previously strong prints, and average hours worked contracted due to staff absences. On the other, metrics such as involuntary part-time unemployment, suggests the Canadian labour market remains tight."

"Today's report may be the start of a new trend for the Canada's labour market; slower job growth due to harder hiring conditions. While this should filter through to much higher wage growth, it is difficult to pull such inferences from one data point."

DOUG PORTER, CHIEF ECONOMIST, BMO CAPITAL MARKETS

"I would say this is back to normal. If you look at the rise in employment, it's very close to what you would expect in this economy in 'normal times'."

"There are a couple of things that do stand out. The unemployment rate, even with that modest gain, managed to drop to a new multi-decade low, reinforcing the point that the jobs market is very tight. And one of the reasons why employment growth may be slowing is that employers just can't find the workers now. So the slowdown is not necessarily a demand story, it's probably increasingly more of a supply story."

"Some of the details were on the soft side. The mix between full-time and part-time was sluggish as was hours worked. But I don't think that takes away from the main theme here and that is how extraordinarily tight the job market is."

JIMMY JEAN, CHIEF ECONOMIST AT DESJARDINS GROUP

"Negative surprise here... Looking at some of the breakdowns, you see the services side feel pretty solid here, 31,000 jobs added. But that weakness comes from the goods producing sectors. I haven't seen much of the narratives yet. It's consistent with the idea that the services sector is the one that really recovering heavily right now. Whereas in goods, we're continuing to see problems with respect to supply chain issues, and also the slowdown in the housing market, which may be related, although I haven't seen the details of it yet. I think the biggest surprise for me is wage growth... We expect wages to accelerate not decelerate right now, so it's a bit of a mystery what's going on with this. We still have a very tight unemployment rate - 5.2% unemployment - so you know, still moving lower, but wages not quite reacting as expected."

"Given the accumulation of evidence we've had on the job market, be it the jobs turnover, the high job vacancies, and all those conditions of tightness... Despite that disappointment, the case is still very solid (for the central bank) towards continuing to move forcefully. So that means super size rate hikes. Obviously, in the last couple of weeks, they've specified that this would probably mean moving at 50-basis-point increments."

(Reporting by Steve Scherer and Fergal Smith, Editing by Denny Thomas)